Integrated circuit technology continues to shrink transistor size and thus pack more and more transistors onto a die. The resulting scaling provides the core of an integrated circuit with vast amounts of functionality. Such enhanced functionality requires ever more input and output signals. But the input and output pins for integrated circuits have not been scaled accordingly. Thus, a typical modern integrated circuit has a relatively small set of pins that must service more and more functionality for the integrated circuit's core.
Pin limitations on integrated circuits are thus a common design challenge. It is therefore advantageous to enhance integrated circuit design such that fewer pins are needed for a given functionality. The saved pins can then be devoted to other functions. For example, to function in the inter-integrated circuit (I2C) protocol, a device requires an I2C address. The generation of this address conventionally requires several pins. It would thus be advantageous if an integrated circuit could be configured to generate such an address using fewer pins. For example, if a device could receive an analog voltage at a single pin and convert this analog voltage into a digital address, the pin usage is minimized. But conventional analog-to-digital converters are costly and demand too much die space.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for improved integrated circuits that can convert an analog voltage received on a single pin into a digital value.
Embodiments of the present invention and their advantages are best understood by referring to the detailed description that follows. It should be appreciated that like reference numerals are used to identify like elements illustrated in one or more of the figures.